Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

Every parent wants their child to have the best education and preparation for life. In my family, we say that we are not trying to raise great kids, we are trying to raise great and godly adults. I am grateful for the many excellent teachers and administrators that have been in my children's life. As a son of a school teacher and librarian, I understand well the sacrifices made by so many educators.

But, God gave parents the primary responsibility to equip their child for life. Their choices should not be limited based on the preferences of a Washington DC beaurocrat over a thousand miles away. Parents and guardians want the best for their children, so it is right to allow them to choose the option that works best for their child, home school, public school, private school or charter school.

The curriculum and standards in each public school should be determined by the local districts and the state of Oklahoma, not a national body. While some suggest that the "Common Core" is only a testing standard, those in the classroom can tell you that the subjects on the test are also the subjects of the curriculum. If you can control the content of the final test, you will control the content of the curriculum and the classroom. Common Core not only selects what a school will teach, it also selects what a school will not teach since subjects not in the national Common Core standards will receive little if any instructional time.

Oklahoma should lead the nation in education. One of the three great ladders out of poverty for any child is a great education. But, the best people to make decisions about a child's education and preparation for the local job market are the parents and the local education leadership.

Federal funding of education includes multiple silos of funding and hundreds of federal mandates for each silo. It is not the responsibility of the federal government to collect tax dollars on April 15 from hardworking Oklahomans then return those funds back to Oklahoma if we do education "their way."

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